...

CALL FOR RESEARCH SCIENTIST POSITIONS in Cyber-Physical Systems and Wireless Sensor Networks | Deadline...

Concurso para estudantes de doutoramento | Call for PhD students | More details here.

CALL FOR RESEARCH SCIENTIST POSITIONS in Cyber-Physical Systems and Wireless Sensor Networks | Deadline extended to 31/JAN | More details here.

OVER 100 000 VISITS AND 6000 DOWNLOADS! open-ZB.net already witnessed over 100 000 visits (effective visits, not just mouse clicks) and 6000 downloads of the toolset from around the world, including people from top universities and companies. Notably, there are 4-5 downloads in average per day, almost 4 years after the first release (November 2006). Since early 2009, the sinergies created by the open-ZB research team has triggered the creation of the TinyOS 15.4 and ZigBee Working Groups, in which we have been actively involved. In this line, we have been working towards "official" implementations of the standard 15.4 and ZigBee protocols, as well as of QoS add-ons (e.g. security, hidden-node avoidance, traffic differentiation, implicit GTS allocation). This work has been mainly supported by the CONET NoE, within the COTS4QoS research cluster (for more details, please refer to here . Thanks to all that have been putting such a confidence in our work :)

Prof. Tarek Abdelzaher visits CISTER and gives a seminar on privacy issues in "social sensing". More details here.

Z-Monitor has been released! Just visit Z-Monitor for further details and for downloading the tool. Z-Monitor is a network sniffer for the IEEE 802.15.4 protocol that runs over a COTS hardware platform (TelosB) and that can be freely downloaded and used by everyone. It features frame decoding/timeline and topology visualization through an intuitive graphical user interface. It has been tested and validated through The tool is compatible with the official TinyOS implementation of the IEEE 802.15.4 protocol, recently released as open-source by the TinyOS 15.4 Working Group. Z-Monitor has also been tested and validated with the open-ZB open-source implementation of the IEEE 802.15.4 protocol.

Top accessed paper at IEEE TII. Our paper "Improving Quality-of-Service in Wireless Sensor Networks by mitigating hidden-node collisions" published at the IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, is the most accessed since February 2010. Check it here.

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION - International CONET Summer School: ACT-CONTROL-MOVE: BEYOND NETWORKED SENSORS, August 15 - 21, 2010, Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany. Check here. Application Deadline: 31/MAY/2010.

Call for PhD students. Application Deadline: 18/APR/2010. Check here.

open-LQE toolset released and publicly available at http://www.open-LQE.net/ The open-LQE website provides an open-source toolset for radio link quality estimation in wireless sensor networks (WSNs).

CALL for PhD Students in Sensor Networks, Cyber Physical Systems, Multicore Systems, Adaptive RT Systems, and RT Software Please visit http://www.cister.isep.ipp.pt/jobs/

IEEE WFCS 2010 Call-for-Papers Please note that authors of selected papers among those presented in this workshop are going to be invited to submit extended versions of their work to a special section of the IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics (JCR Impact Factor 2008: 2.356). -------------------------------------------------------------------- CALL FOR PAPERS -------------------------------------------------------------------- 8th IEEE International Workshop on Factory Communication Systems COMMUNICATION in AUTOMATION (WFCS 2010) May 18-21, 2010, Nancy, France -------------------------------------------------------------------- Conference web site: http://wfcs2010.loria.fr -------------------------------------------------------------------- SCOPE: The WFCS workshop is the largest IEEE technical event specially dedicated to industrial communication systems. The aim of this workshop is to provide a forum for researchers, practitioners and developers to review current trends in this area and to present and discuss new ideas and new research directions. -------------------------------------------------------------------- FOCUS ON: - Real-time and Dependability in Industrial Communication Systems: message scheduling; task allocation; fault-tolerant communication; performance analysis; safety and security issues; synchronization. - System Integration in Industrial Automation Systems: vertical and life-cycle aspects, web-based setup, maintenance, and configuration; transparency vs. security; data-flow management; internetworking; hybrid wired/wireless industrial infrastructures. - Information and Communication Technology in Automation: system design; component-based systems, web frameworks; mobile computing; modelling and specification techniques; formal methods. - Recent advances in research domains with similar technical requirements: networked control systems; wireless sensor networks; building automation networks; automotive and train-control networks; distributed real-time embedded systems. -------------------------------------------------------------------- WORKSHOP TOPICS: Fieldbus networks Real-time communication and applications Industrial Ethernet networks Web-based communication and applications IP-based networks Distributed application platforms Industrial wireless networks Safety & security in industrial communications Networked embedded systems Fault-tolerance in industrial communications Sensor networks Configuration tools & network management Building automation networks Internetworking & interoperability Automotive and train-control networks System aspects Factory and Process automation networks Case studies -------------------------------------------------------------------- SUBMISSION OF PAPERS: The WFCS workshop is seeking two kinds of submissions. Regular papers: up to 10 double-column pages, reporting on novel and significant contributions to the field of industrial communication systems. Work-in-progress papers: up to 4 double-column pages, describing research that has not yet produced the results required for a regular paper, but that due its novelty and potential impact deserves to be shared with the community at an early stage. Accepted WIP papers will be published in the workshop proceedings. All submitted material (in English language) must be unpublished and not under review elsewhere. -------------------------------------------------------------------- BEST PAPER AWARD: The best paper of the event will be distinguished at the workshop’s banquet dinner with an award. Authors of outstanding papers will be invited to submit a revised version of their papers for publication in a special section in IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics. -------------------------------------------------------------------- AUTHOR'S SCHEDULE Deadline for submission of regular papers: November 13, 2009 Notification of acceptance of regular papers: February 23, 2010 Deadline for submission of work-in-progress papers: March 1, 2010 Notification of acceptance of work-in-progress papers: April 6, 2010 Deadline for submission of final manuscripts (regular,WIP): April 12, 2010 -------------------------------------------------------------------- HONORARY CHAIR Guy Juanole, LAAS-CNRS, Toulouse, France GENERAL CO-CHAIRS: Francoise Simonot-Lion, LORIA-INPL, Nancy, France Thilo Sauter, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austria PROGRAM COMMITTEE CO-CHAIRS: Julian Proenza, Universitat de les Illes Balears, Spain Andreas Willig, Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany INDUSTRY DAY AND PANEL DISCUSSION CO-CHAIR Ye-Qiong Song, LORIA-INPL, Nancy, France WIP CO-CHAIRS Jürgen Jasperneite, Institute Industrial IT, Germany Stefano Vitturi, Italian National Council of Research, Italy FINANCE CHAIR: Anne-Lise Charbonnier LOCAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEE Liliana Cucu, INRIA Lionel Maurice, CNRS Jean-Philippe Georges, CRAN, Université Henri Poincaré - Nancy 1 Laurent Ciarletta, LORIA, INPL Pascal Fontaine, LORIA, Université de Nancy 2 -------------------------------------------------------------------- PROGRAM COMMITTEE Lucia Lo Bello, University of Catania, Italy Ivan Cibrario Bertolotti, IEIIT-CNR / Politecnico di Torino, Italy Peter Buchholz, University of Dortmund, Germany Gianluca Cena, IEIIT-CNR / Politecnico di Torino, Italy Jean-Dominique Decotignie, CSEM, Switzerland Dacfey Dzung, ABB Corporate Research, Switzerland Alessandra Flammini, University of Brescia,Italy Jose Alberto Fonseca, University of Aveiro, Portugal Hans Hansson, MRTC / Mälardalen University, Sweden Zdenek Hanzalek, Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic Klaus Kabitzsch, Dresden University of Technology, Germany Jörg Kaiser, University of Magdeburg, Germany Athanasios Kalogeras, ISI (Industrial Systems Institute), Greece Wolfgang Kastner, Vienna University of Technology, Austria Tei-Wei Kuo, National Taiwan University, Taiwan Nicolas Navet, INRIA / RtaW, France Thomas Nolte, MRTC / Mälardalen University, Sweden Giovanni Gamba, University of Padova, Italy Laurent George, Ecole Centrale D'Electronique Paris, France Luiz Affonso Guedes, Universidade Federal do Rio Grando do Norte, Brazil Mario Alves, Polytechnic Institute of Porto (ISEP/IPP), Portugal Elisabeth Uhlemann, Halmstad University, Sweden Kai Hansen, ABB Corporate Research, Norway Max Felser, Bern University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland Guy Juanole, LAAS-CNRS / University of Toulouse, France Roman Obermaisser, Vienna University of Technology, Austria Juan Pimentel, Kettering University, USA Thilo Sauter, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austria Victor M. Sempere Paya, Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain Francoise Simonot-Lion, Nancy University / LORIA, France Ye-Qiong Song, Nancy University / LORIA, France Jean-Pierre Thomesse, Institut National Polytechnique de Lorraine/LORIA, France Adriano Valenzano, IEIIT-CNR / Politecnico di Torino, Italy Francisco Vasques, University of Porto, Portugal Martin Wollschlaeger, Dresden University of Technology, Germany Takahiro Yakoh, Keio University, Japan Peter Palensky, Austrian Institute of Technology, Austria Filipe Pacheco, Polytechnic Institute of Porto (ISEP/IPP), Portugal Zhi Wang, Zhejiang University, China Vincenzo Liberatore, Case Western Reserve University, USA Albert Treytl, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austria

EWSN'10 MSc + PhD AWARDS The Chairs of the 7th European Conference on Wireless Sensor Networks (EWSN 2010) and the CONET Consortium are pleased to announce the Master and PhD Thesis Award Competitions in the area of Cooperating Objects. The prize is donated by CONET, the Cooperating Objects Network of Excellence, which is an EU-funded project under ICT, Framework 7 (for more information refer to http://www.cooperating-objects.eu). Cooperating Objects combine the strong functional aspects of embedded systems, pervasive computing and wireless sensor networks. Cooperating objects entities federate themselves into dynamic and loose networks in order to reach a common goal. This common goal will typically be related to sensing or control. Theses eligible for the competition have to be completed at an official European university (EU and EFTA) between 1/DEC/2008 and 30/NOV/2009. Candidates must submit the following materials (in English) in electronic format until 4/DEC/2010: . Application letter, including the name of the student, the title of the thesis, its duration, and its date of completion, the date of the defense, the overall grade and a report on the outstanding contributions of the thesis. . Letter of recommendation from Advisor. . The thesis itself. Submission of a single document file in PDF format must be done thru EDAS at http://www.edas.info. The award will be assessed by CONET members. Criteria for selecting the winner are scientific originality, scientific significance for the field of Cooperating Objects, quality of the presentation and potential for practical application. Each category of thesis (MSc or PhD) will have separate prizes assigned by separate academic and industrial juries, for a total of 4 prizes: . MSc Academic - 250 Euros . MSc Industrial - 250 Euros . PhD Academic - 500 Euros . PhD Industrial - 500 Euros The jury can decide not to award some of the prizes if the quality or significance of the submitted works is not relevant. The jury will decide on which track the thesis will be evaluated. The winners of each category will be awarded at the EWSN 2010 dinner on February 18th.

APPLY UNTIL JULY 15!!! SensorNets 2009: The First International School on Cyber-Physical and Sensor Networks Monastir, Tunisia, December 17-21, 2009 http://www.sensornets-school.org/ The objective of the the SensorNets 2009 School is to present a comprehensive state-of-the-art of the enabling technologies for the concept of Cyber-Physical Systems such as Wireless Sensor Networks, RFID, wireless standard protocols, etc. from the basic concepts to the latest achievement and the future challenges in the related research area.

We have now opened a call for positions as research scientists in wireless sensor networks. More information on http://www.cister.isep.ipp.pt/jobs/

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: International CONET Summer School | "SENIOT: From Sensor Networks to Networked Intelligent Objects" | July 26 - August 1, 2009, Bertinoro, Italy. See www.cooperating-objects.eu/school | APPLICATION DEADLINE -- May 15, 2009

Cister researchers Eduardo Tovar, Bjorn Andersson, Shashi Prabh and Mário Alves participate in the kick-off meeting of the EMMON European project at Critical Software facilities, 25-26/MAR/2009, Coimbra, Portugal. The EMMON project (EMbedded MONitoring), launched by the ARTEMIS Joint Undertaking (7th Framework Programme of the European Commission). EMMON's aims at the development of a functional prototype for the real-time monitoring of specific natural scenarios (related to the quality of urban life, forest environment, civil protection etc) using Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) devices. The goal of the project is to develop the technology to effectively monitor and control an area of 50 square km - this will involve the deployment of thousands of wireless sensor nodes which will be a massive advance on the current state-of-the-art. Press release at: http://www.criticalsoftware.com/critical-press-releases/european-consortium-develops-system-to-improve-peoples-living-conditions.html

Best MSc Thesis award at EWSN'09! Ricardo Severino received this prestigious award for his Master Thesis "On the use of IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee for Time-Sensitive Wireless Sensor Network Applications" (available for download in this web site). Further details at http://www.cooperating-objects.eu/events/ewsn-2009-awards/

Tutorial at EWSN'09. Mário Alves gave a tutorial entitled "The wireless sensor networks standards and COTS landscape: can we get QoS and “calm technology”?", at the 6th European Conference on Wireless Sensor Networks (EWSN'09), February 11th, Cork, Ireland. Tutorial slides available in this web site. Summary and author bio at: http://www.ewsn.org/tutorial.html

First Issue of CONET Newsletter. The CONET European Network of Excellence has issued its first newsletter containing the member profile of ISEP-IPP, a guest column by John A. Stankovic and two roadmap previews. Download at: http://www.cooperating-objects.eu/newsletter/

IEEE 802.15.4 and ZigBee Working Group Formation Two new TinyOS 2 Working Groups have been formed: a IEEE 802.15.4 (15.4) Working Group and a ZigBee Working Group. Full story at http://www.tinyos.net/scoop/story/2009/1/15/84439/1030

EWSN 2009/CONET Master and PhD Thesis Awards! The Chairs of the 6th European Conference on Wireless Sensor Networks (EWSN 2009) and the CONET Consortium are pleased to announce the Master and PhD Thesis Award Competitions in the area of Cooperating Objects. The prize is donated by CONET (http://www.cooperating-objects.eu), the Cooperating Objects Network of Excellence, which is an EU-funded project under ICT, Framework 7. Candidates must submit the required materials (in English) in electronic format until Jan 23rd. Submission of a single document file in PDF format must be done via EDAS (http://www.edas.info). More details are available here (http://www.ewsn.org/CONET_award.pdf).

ETTX 2009 - The First European TinyOS Technology Exchange (ETTX 2009) will take place in Cork, Ireland, on February 10, 2009, collocated with EWSN 2009, the largest sensor networks conference in Europe. The TinyOS Technology Exchange (TTX) is a yearly venue where developers, users, and companies involved in low-power wireless sensing get together to talk about recent developments and future directions of the TinyOS platform and the related technologies. The TTX has been traditionally held in the USA. To foster a broader European TinyOS community, we are launching a companion event In Europe with the same format. The TinyOS Alliance Steering Committee encourages anyone who is interested in, using, exploring or advancing TinyOS-based technologies to attend. http://sites.google.com/site/ettx2009/

CONET meeting in Porto. The CONET Network of Excellence on "Cooperating Objects" is a EU-funded project under ICT/WP7, gathering a number of reputed European academic and industrial partners. The CONET project started on June 1st, 2008 and has a duration of 4 years, with a total funding of 4 MEuro. CONET tries to merge the areas of Embedded Systems, Pervasive Computing and Wireless Sensor Networks into what is dubbed "Cooperating Objects" systems. Several research clusters were triggered addressing complementary scientific topics, one of them quite related to the ART-WiSe/open-ZB frameworks - COTS4QoS (COTS-based Architecture for QoS in Large-Scale Distributed Embedded Systems), for which a first meeting was held in Porto, 19-20/NOV/2008. The objective of this cluster is to achieve Quality-of-Service in large-scale distributed embedded systems using standard and Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) hardware and software platforms (e.g. communication protocols, motes, operating systems). More info is available in http://www.cooperating-objects.eu/

Ricardo Severino defended his MSc in ECE with the Thesis entitled "On the use of IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee for Time-Sensitive Wireless Sensor Network Applications", supervised by Prof. Mário Alves and co-supervised by Prof. Anis Koubaa. His contestor was Prof. José Alberto Fonseca, from the University of Aveiro. His final classification was 19 out of 20. The camera-ready version of the Thesis will be available for download soon.

Mário Alves gave two Seminars in the a doctoral school for PhD students in Computer Science, in L'Aquila, Italy. Talk 1: "Enabling ubiquitous computing and cyber-physical systems with wireless sensor/actuator networks: what is at stake?". Talk 2: "Guaranteeing QoS in large-scale distributed embedded systems using standard and COTS technologies: ongoing research at IPP-HURRAY".

Prof. Peter Steenkiste (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~prs/) came to Porto for meeting researchers at the IPP-HURRAY Research Group. Peter Steenkiste is a Professor of Computer Science and of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. A small workshop was organized so that Prof. Steenkiste could outline his ongoing research lines at CMU and learn about ours, to foster collaboration in the context of the Portugal-CMU programme (http://www.hurray.isep.ipp.pt/CMU-PT/). His research interests mostly concern wireless networking, in a broad range of wireless networking projects, such as self-managing chaotic networks, wireless testbed based on emulation, high-quality video over wireless and playing with software radios.

Positions available at the IPP-HURRAY Research Group :) See the calls for Research Scientists, Postdocs and PhD Students at http://www.hurray.isep.ipp.pt/asp/list_jobs2.asp

Ricardo Severino presented the paper entitled "ZigBee over TinyOS: implementation and experimental challenges" in the 8th Portuguese Conference on Automatic Control (CONTROLO’2008), Invited Session on "Real-Time Communications: from theory to applications", Vila Real, Portugal. This paper reports on our experience with TinyOS and with the MICAz and TelosB mote platforms, outlining some of the major difficulties we have encountered in the context of the implementation of our IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee open-source stack.

Over 40000 visits to the open-ZB web site and 2000 downloads of the IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee toolset. THANK YOU ALL FOR BEING PART OF THIS SUCCESS.

Manish Batsa (maba@isep.ipp.pt) has joined the ART-WiSe team! Manish is a distinguished Indian undergraduate student (4th year, Computer Science and Engineering IIT Roorkee) that is doing an internship at IPP-HURRAY (until the end of July). He will work in the context of the ongoing project with SSSUP (Pisa) and will focus his work on developing the missing functionalities of our IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee protocol stack over ERIKA.

The President of the Portuguese Republic, Prof. Aníbal Cavaco Silva, visited the CISTER Research Unit at ISEP. Among other cutting-edge research highlights, there was a focus on the new paradigms of large-scale distributed embedded systems for monitoring critical physical infrastructures (e.g. electrical, water, oil distribution networks, bridges, highways, tunnels). The ART-WiSe and open-ZB research frameworks were shortly overviewed, stressing on our belief that using standard communication protocols (as ZigBee) and commercial off-the-shelf technologies can speed-up a wider utilization of these wireless sensor network infrastructures. The Minister of Science and Technology, Prof. José Mariano Gago was also present, among other distinguished visitors.

Ricardo Severino went to the RETIS Lab, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna (http://retis.sssup.it) to foster the migration of the open-ZB IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee protocol stack (http://www.open-ZB.net) to the ERIKA (http://erika.sssup.it) real-time operating system. Mission ends on the 9/MAY.

35000 visits :) After 17 months have elapsed since its release, the open-ZB web site already witnessed over 35000 visits. The total number of downloads so far is roughly 2000. The average daily rates are around 70 visits and 4 downloads Thank you ALL for being part of this success :)

Mangesh Chitnis, from the RETIS Lab, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna (http://retis.sssup.it) came to Porto for the collaborative work on the migration of the open-ZB IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee protocol stack (http://www.open-ZB.net) to the ERIKA (http://erika.sssup.it) real-time operating system. He gave a talk on the 30/APR/2008 oultining the most important features of the ERIKA real-time operating system.

Release of a Technical Report (HURRAY-TR-080401) on how to achieve "Real-Time Communications over Cluster-Tree Sensor Networks with Mobile Sink Behaviour". This proposes analytical models and describes a MATLAB tool for the worst-case dimensioning of cluster-tree ZigBee networks. Additionally, it demonstrates the validity and analyses the accuracy of our methodology through an experimental test-bed based on COTS ZigBee technology.

André Cunha spent one month in the RETIS Lab, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna (SSSUP, Pisa, Italy), to start the migration of the open-ZB protocol stack to the ERIKA real-time operating system, together with researchers from the RETIS Lab. Mission ended 16/MAR/2008.

Paolo Pagano, Mangesh Chitnis and Antonio Romano, from the RETIS Lab (http://retis.sssup.it), Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna (http://www.sssup.it), came to Porto from 28-31/JAN/2008, for a workshop on wireless sensor networks (WSNs), namely to explore joint research on real-time communications in WSNs, based COTS communication protocols and operating systems.

Release of a Beta Version of the IEEE 802.15.4 implementation for TinyOS v2.0.

A stable release will be available shortly, including the Time Division Beacon Scheduling and the ZigBee Network Layer

First anniversary of the Open-ZB web site!!!

One year has elapsed since the release of the Open-ZB web site. During this period, we witnessed over 18000 visits and over 700 downloads, from worldwide reputed universities, RTD institutions and companies. Within this context, several bi-lateral and multi-lateral collaboration initiatives have been triggered, which we believe will leverage even further the quality, completeness and usage of the Open-ZB open-source toolset.

Recent scientific and technological advancements within the ART-WiSe framework have been demonstrating the feasibility and effectiveness of the IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee protocols as federating communication technologies for Wireless Sensor Networks, particularly for applications with stringent QoS requirements, such in Cyber-Physical Systems. Fortunately, our vision on using standard COTS technologies in large-scale embedded computing applications has been and is being recognized by the academic and industrial communities at large.

Thank you all for your trust and contribution, and stay tuned for upcoming upgrades of the toolset. Ongoing migration of the Open-ZB protocol stack to TinyOS 2.0 (within the collaboration with the TinyOS Network Protocol Working Group) and to Contiki (within the collaboration with SICS - Swedish Institute for Computer Science) will hopefully see the light soon.

-Release of version 1.2 of the IEEE 802.15.4 implementation
-Release of a new version of the OPNET simulator (now supporting GTS)
-Release of the Time Division Beacon Scheduling implementation

Coming soon: Release of version 1.2 of the implementation with the ZigBee Network Layer.

-ZigBee Network layer addressing schemes;
-Cluster-Tree support;
-Tree-routing.

Release of version 1.1 of the IEEE 802.15.4 implementation.

-Added the channel Scan – Energy Detection and Passive Scan;
-Updated the backoff_fired event avoiding an excessive task posting;
-Corrected the send buffer management bug when the CSMA/CA failed;
-Updated the synchronization mechanism;
-Minor changes in several functions.

Release of the open-ZB.net website.